One among the traditional world’s great urban centres is way older than previously thought, in accordance with latest research which could transform our understanding of how civilisation developed.
Fresh excavations at Mohenjo-daro, in present-day Pakistan, suggest its origins date back several centuries sooner than had been previously established.
Situated along the Indus River in Sindh’s Larkana district, Mohenjo-daro covers greater than 620 acres and is believed to have supported as much as 40,000 people at its peak – making it one in all the most important cities of the Bronze Age.
Latest radiocarbon dating from excavations carried out between 2025 and 2026 indicates that the location was already occupied in the course of the Early Harappan, or Kot Diji, phase between about 3300 and 2600 BC. That makes the town even older than the pyramids.
Researchers say this challenges the long-held view that urban life within the Indus Valley emerged rapidly around 2600 BC, as a substitute pointing to a more gradual strategy of development.
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The project, led by Pakistan’s Dr Asma Ibrahim and Ali Lashari together with Dr Jonathan Mark Kenoyer from the University of Wisconsin focused on an area west of the location’s Stupa Mound.
Archaeologists re-examined a big mudbrick structure first uncovered in 1950 by Mortimer Wheeler, who had interpreted it as a flood-control embankment. Latest evaluation suggests a distinct conclusion.
Using stratigraphic study and radiocarbon dating, researchers found the structure to be a multi-phase mudbrick city wall, built and expanded over several centuries fairly than serving a purely defensive or hydraulic function.
Samples from its lowest levels date its earliest construction to around 2700–2600 BC, towards the top of the Early Harappan period.
Further evidence beneath the wall revealed even earlier settlement activity, including pottery typical of the Kot Diji phase. This means the town evolved from an existing community, fairly than being constructed from scratch in the course of the later, more developed phase of the civilisation.
Upper levels of the wall show continued construction in the course of the Mature Harappan period, after 2600 BC, when Mohenjo-daro reached its height.
Researchers say the wall was expanded and maintained until no less than 2200 BC, suggesting long-term planning and resource management.
Although the newest findings deal with the town’s earliest phases, Mohenjo-daro has continued to yield discoveries from much later periods.
Mohenjo-daro is thought for its advanced urban planning, including grid-like streets, standardised baked bricks and complicated drainage systems, in addition to monumental structures equivalent to the Great Bath.
Nevertheless, one in all its biggest mysteries stays unsolved: the Indus script, found on seals and tablets, has yet to be deciphered. If and when it’s, the story of the town’s emergence could change into much more accessible.
Without written records, archaeologists depend on physical evidence and scientific techniques to reconstruct the town’s past.
The findings mark a shift in understanding the rise of urban life within the Indus Valley, say researchers.
Reasonably than a sudden emergence of cities, the evidence suggests a gradual, multi-phase development, with early communities laying the foundations for one in all the world’s earliest civilisations.
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